Hopefully you’ve been following our blogging series this month. We have covered why blogging is important, the parts and pieces of a good blog, and blogging FAQs.

Now we are going to wrap things up by give you a list of suggestions for crafting your blog posts to maximize search engine optimization (SEO), readability, and engagement.

The following is a list of things to include with every blog post:

Pictures – use at least one picture in each blog post. Be sure to include ‘alt text’ on each image, this is the ‘alternative text’ that Google will read and it will appear in case the picture is not available.

Bolding – bold key words and important phrases to help those that are skimming find the highlights.

Titles – each post should have a title that is captivating and include keywords that describe the content of your post.

Sub-titles – utilize the power of sub-titles (H2, H3, etc…) to guide the reader (and search engines) through the content.

Lists – outline important content as a bulleted or numbered list in order to ensure each point gets attention.

Keywords – utilize the key words and phrases several times throughout a post, including in the title and sub-titles, at the beginning and at the end of your post, and in your metadata.

Links – relevant inbound and outbound links can also help your posts by providing extra value to your reader and increasing the validity of your content, which will help you rank higher in searches.

Sharing – make it easy for readers to share your content by placing sharing buttons on each post.

If you are using WordPress, we recommend a plugin site called ‘SEO by Yoast’ which helps with suggestions for improving SEO on specific posts and pages.

Here’s a list of additional resources from blogging experts:

22 Top Blogging Tools Loved by the Pros

21 Business Blogging Tips From the Pros

11 Pro Tips for Better Business Blogging

Now that you’ve read our series on blogging, do you have any blogging questions or advice to share?